Small device to connect camera scanner

Off the top of my head, RaspberryPi and a hefty battery pack might do what you need. Not sure about the screen. From the news I've read, the RaspberryPi project is looking for applications. Mel.

Why not use a regular digital camera ??

Android phones can also be used, you just need to find the right one.

I doubt anyone will place their face on a flatbed scanner.

don

You recited the PRD for a typical inexpensive digital camera. Buy em in bulk/buy em retail all over the world.

JJS

Hello,

I am working on project which is used for rural population in India. The requirement is field agent will be visiting remote villages to collect information (demographic) and their identity proofs using a camera based scanner. The issue is these scanner work with PC/Laptop which is connected to USB port (scanner draws power from USB port). Unfortunately in remote areas electricity is not available for most part of the day. So we are looking for following solution:

1. Small device with battery that can last for 6-8 hrs.
2. Has USB Host port that connects to scanner
3. Device needs to have small LCD display (2-4") which can show the images coming from scanner camera.
4. Device will have set of buttons that can be used to take a picture of the document (as good as scan)
5. It stores it in internal memory /Micro SD card
6. Status screen (can share same screen for showing the image preview) for total count of the picture, scrolling through images, deleting etc.

1. When field agent returns to office, he/she can connect the device to PC and download images to PC for further processing.

Does anyone know if such device is readily available? otherwise how to build it? I looked at option of using USB port of Andriod based phone but it is not readily available.

Since this is Govt project run by NGO, budget is a big constraint.

Any help is highly appreciated.

Uday

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I THINK he has some type of USB scanning device that needs a host.

Ok, Uday what is it ??

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A3). Digital camera can probably do the work but it then totally depends on skill of a person. We need very simple to operate and can be used by person who does not good education as it will be used in rural part of India. Local people may not be comfortable or may not realize that they have not taken quality pictures. Some documents will be in English and some will be in local language so at least for English documents we later need to perform OCR so image quality needs to be good. Specialized scanner (Cam scanner) though works on same principle of digital camera it is fine tuned to take pictures of document where as digital camera is designed for taking pictures of people or objects. I hope it is bit clear now... I sincerely appreciate all the responses and help.

With warm regards... Uday

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I don't understand why you can't use a laptop, or dump the scanner altogether and just use the camera in a smart phone. But if you are stuck with the "camera based scanner", then it seems that your primary limitation is support of this USB interface. To properly address the problem we would have to know the exact make/model of the scanner to know if it is supported under Windows/OSX/Linux before suggesting any hardware.

Assuming that you'll need Windows and/or Linux to support the scanner driver, then if a PC requires too much power for you, then you'll probably have to look at a single board computer with a small display. But I'd look at the mini/micro laptop solutions first (Dell Inspiron Mini 10 netbook for example).

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Perhaps something like this;

Can you describe precisely what you need to ACCOMPLISH?

I guess the device is a secret.

To approach this from another direction, does this magic device have PC software and driver install on a Windoze PC.

Does this magic device have software and drivers for a MAC or Linux ??

If not then there is no way to get this magic device to work with any other device.

Sorry, but thats how it crumbles.

don

Thanks for the reply. It is not a secret. Currently we are using cam scanner with Windows PC. Software on PC uses standard Windows Device Driver for USB based camera. Benefits of using cam scanners are:

1. Very fast (under 1 sec)
2. Many times documents are legal registers so these are not individual pages which can go in standard flatbed scanner. Govt does not allow to unbind registers as these are used as legal proof and hence can't be tempered.

1. Regular flatbed scanner speed is too slow

1. Volume is too high

Now why we can't use PC

1. These are remote villages and power is practically not available
2. Cost of UPS is too high
3. Users are not highly educated as they come from remote areas in India
4. They are not very familiar with using PC
5. Entire thing needs to be portable as one agent needs to cover several villages.

1. Regarding using digital camera i have already stated reasons.

I am not too much deep in hardware design, I am more on software application side. However what I feel is, cam scanner uses standard USB driver on windows so why can't one emulate USB protocol or standard set of commands which scanner will understand and respond. I may be wrong and may be thinking in very simple terms. There is ready made standalone product available but cost is quite high (aprox. 200+ USD) Scanner that I am currently using can't work standalone but available right from USD 35-40 so my idea is if we can develop device which can communicate and process image from the scanner and if it cost 60-70 USD then solution is available in 100 USD which will be quite useful and meet NGO project budget.

Thanks Uday

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If you use a netbook you can dump the smartphone as well. Nowadays most, if not all, netbooks have a webcam build in. The netbook I have (nothing special) seems to fullfil the requirements, it is cheap, runs about 8 hours on a single charge, has a webcam, plenty of hard disk space, a SD Card slot and has (obviously) a screen.

Ok, I get it now.

Try this:

I have one and it does a very good job after some training and lots of practice.

Good Luck

don

There are many larger devices that can be USB hosts, but as that's

*much* more complex than being a USB slave, it's pretty rare except in devices intended to attach peripherals.

A number of Android tablets have USB host support, although some (most?) of them only support mass storage devices, but that's a matter of drivers (which you may or may not be able to write, you'd have to talk to the particular vendor). But I'm not sure those would really meet your price point. There are also a number of embedded controllers with software stacks that include the USB host function, if you want to roll your own, but that's going to include a large NRE, so unless your volume is high enough, you'll have the same problem.

Dear Don,

Thanks a lot for all your help.

Regards... Uday

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Why not a fixed focus digital camera with a wire frame that is pressed against the document to establish the correct focal distance. Later someone can use something like White Board Photo to post process the images that can be read with most OCR software.

Such a camera can be very low cost < $20 and would store many documents.

Regards

Walter Banks